Rudies, 9th May

Rudies…. A message to you Rudies…. And that message is: Nice one.

On a Monday I went down to sample a new jerk chicken joint in Dalston. Two days after my superb fried chicken meal at Chick ‘n’ Sours might have been overkill but I figured the two types of cuisine were different enough that I wouldn’t suffer chicken fatigue.

Just to make sure, we started with some fried calamari with a coriander and lime dip. Oh my. I would say these were the best calamari I have had. The batter was so light and crisp with the squid being a little chewy within, but not at all rubbery. The pop you got from the dip was incredibly moreish – this is a spicy one! Great start.

On Mondays they do 50% off the half jerk chicken, so who’s gonna order anything else? Jerk chicken it was. I am certain I can polish off half a chicken whenever I used to order from Nando’s but these ones must be more plump than others as I was struggling to finish it. Of course – we also had sweet potato fries and an avocado, mango and onion salad to contend with too.

The sweet potato fries were pretty good and the salad which was a little superfluous was fresh and sweet. The chicken came with a sauce of your choice and not only did papaya sound the nicest it was also the hottest. The chicken was nicely charred on the grill (although seemed to take so long to come out we actually thought they’d forgotten about us) and had solid jerk flavours.

Of course, I couldn’t not try a cocktail. The Governor General which was rum orange curacao, vermouth and sorrel. A subtley Caribbean influence, though there was nothing subtle about the amount of alcohol in it.

An all-round enjoyable meal out.